I don't think he was capable of loving anyone, but as much as he is able to be interested in someone else, and not just himself and his career, he invested just that much in her. He was touched by her simple goodness, and flattered by her appreciation of him, but unlike Baxter, who was heroically devoted to her, he wasn't willing to make any kind of sacrifice for her. His betrayal of her in the end is so heart-wrenching that although I love this film and have seen it many times, I can't bear to watch the ending.

If Gil, the real man, loved her, why didn't he take her to Hollywood? Nothing, and I mean nothing was stopping him. Imagine the PR mileage he could have gotten out of it! A great way to turn the "bad PR" of the fictional him coming off that screen into good PR: "And this fairy-tale ending never would have happened, folks, if he hadn't had to go to New Jersy to meet his dreamgirla fan, just like you!" In every other scene all he can think of is his career, and he doesn't even take her to Hollywood when he could have gotten a career boost out of it.
An adulterous affair with a married woman and not even a fellow star but a dirt-poor girl from the sticks in 1930s Hollywood? Good PR?
The only way he could possibly have pulled it off would have been if his studio conspired to cover the whole thing up one hint of that in the public press and Gil's good name would have been destroyed. If he'd been Clark Gable he might have got away with it (although even then I imagine he would have been under massive pressure to ditch her), but Gil is characterised as a young actor still on the verge of his first major breakthrough. One false step and his whole future would have been in jeopardy: he was just another replaceable pretty face at that stage in his career.
This was the era when actors had to sign 'morality clauses' in their contracts that stated the whole deal was off if they comitted some indiscretion that sullied their public image
If Woody Allen had wanted to he could probably have come up with some way for the characters to be together he was evidently making a deliberate point in having Gil take the easy and most wounding way out but the actor's agent would certainly not have seen such an affair as a career boost. The absolute reverse.
~~Igenlode, who wanted Cecilia to be happy too
Gather round, lads and lasses, gather round

I agree with most of the posters here that Gil didn't actually love Cecilia and that most of his actions were to get Tom Baxter back on screen and continue his career although also because he was loving the way she was flattering him and his talent. I do believe it's his guilt troubling him in the plane at the end but was sure to pass. Gil's true love was himself, as with Monk whose love is actually only for himself. Having re-watched the film in an already pessimistic mood, my interpretation was that love (and true happiness) only exists in the arts and movies, not in real life.

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I think not. The pensive look that we see him when he's on the plane is not because he loved her but because he's feeling bad at betraying her. The "looking right, looking left" is nonsense. Don't take it literally. Or is that what Quentin Tarantino was talking about when he said film school fills with nonsense in students' mind?

I think this "un-hollywood ending" was exactly the point. It showed perfectly how the fantasy of movies differs from reality. In the end I was left wondering if any of it had happened, or if the entire film was just her imagination.

As a reward for your bravery, you will both find permanent homes on adult contemporary radio.

I'm fresh off of watching it and I want to punch woody allen in the face! Why would he leave cecilia off with her abusive husband? I know I'm angry and it'll pass but hopefully this board will help me see the "good" in the ending. But yeah, she should've gone with tom.

Of course he didn't! If he'd loved her he would have taken her with him to Hollywood instead of ditching her! Any other interpretation is total nonsense as far as I'm concerned. What he did is absolutely terrible, saying those things and not really meaning them. Scumbag of the century!
What's the Spanish for drunken bum?

I've seen some really good answers here, which are gonna help me sum up my thoughts on this topic.
What you're looking at is a girl who escapes the harsh reality of her life by going to movies all the time, an obsession with fantasy. She's stressed and harassed, unsure of herself and possibly depressed. She's married to a cheap, boozing layabout who abuses and uses her without regard for her as a human being. But this wasn't how it'd always been. He was different when they were new together, when he had a job and they were younger and the world had options.
Pictures represent a dream that's there but just out of reach to Cecelia. But then, she made a wish, or maybe a prayer, and it was miraculously granted.
Tom Baxter was the knight in shining armor. He was perfect. And he loved Cecelia perfectly. He proved this in the brothel, for example. But Cecelia also desired a /man/, so-to-speak, someone who could take care of her and she could take care of (without feeling used and alone, in relation to her current husband). But Tom didn't have any money. Maybe Cecelia recognized that Tom could break in the real world. Maybe she saw that he could turn into her useless husband. She was afraid.
Cecelia rejected the perfect dream to be with a man who /looked/ like her perfect dream guy, only real with money. She believed his promises because in the end she was in love with what he represented to her on the movie screen.
Moving on to Gil. He was self-absorbed,and possibly very tricky. Maybe he THOUGHT about keeping Cecelia, whisking her away. But in the end, he recognized that she could only be baggage. He was "a rising star with a promising career" and she was just a poor woman at the end of her youth. He was afraid of keeping her, too.
In my opinion, I think Cecelia was given a gift and she rejected it out of fear. Did Gil really love Cecelia? No, not like Tom Baxter did. He was written to know what love was and to be a gentleman. He fell in love with this sad-faced, doe-eyed girl who stared up at him from her movie seat with longing and need.
But what about Cecelia? Did she really love anyone? I think she was in love with the idea of being in love with/being with Gil. And I think she'd already fallen for Tom, but was afraid to completely love him in the end, so she rejected him.
The ending isn't happy, because it's supposed to represent the real world and Gil, a real man with complex issues. Of COURSE he didn't take Cecelia with him. That kind of thing only happens in the movies.

It's been years since I watched this, but I think there's more than one meaning you can get out of the character's relationships and the ending. I think the ending was Woody saying, reality, for most people, is not satisfying, and that's why they retreat into fantasy. The movie character loved her, but he wasn't "real", however his "love" could have been interpreted as "real".
But since he himself doesn't really exist, does the love exist, or is what the movie character feels just "fantasy" also?
Then you have the flesh and blood man. Maybe he does love her, but his love is grounded in a real man, a real "reality". Meaning it's more complicated and isn't perfect and has flaws. Let's face it, "true" love or not, in reality, we make bad choices, we lose loves, we let people down. We sometimes don't realize what we haveuntil it's gone.
I don't think Gil's choosing his career meant he didn't care for her. I do think his leaving, and her being with neither man in the end, just drives home the point that reality and fantasy can't mix. That fantasy is more pleasing because you can control it, and keep people from leaving you..and in reality, you can't.

Great post! I kinda got the impression he was more in love with the idea of being in love more so than actually in love with Cecilia.

Well that could just be your teacher over analyzing the film and making a fool of herself or she could have a valid point. Clearly you are right about the ending with him looking back at her and I guess he could have liked her and felt sorry for her, feeling like a douche too probably but if he loved her he wouldn't have left.
Somebody here has been drinking and I'm sad to say it ain't me - Allan Francis Doyle

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"my career is on the line" was his main focus and he loves all the attention he gets from Cecilia and others and is concerned about the next big thing in his career as an actor

I wouldn't attend a class taken by your professor - I don't think anyone could be sure on the matter and the evidence she cites is just banal. The plane scene suggests that Gil has some regrets about the affair but this could be the regret that he has put his career over his love for Cecilia or it could be that he is just sorry for messing her around to get what he wanted.
I would argue the answer is likely to be that Gil doesn't love Cecilia because the film contrasts fiction and reality and Allen is a pessimist about reality. The fictional Tom Baxter loves Cecilia in (for Allen) an unreal way. Cecilia chooses reality and thus can never have that kind of idealised love. For me the film is similar to Sullivan's Travels: a defence of the limitations of cinema because, even if escapism is an unreality, it cheers people up and offers them what real life can't grant them.

I think Gil loved the idea of Cecilia loving him. He loved the attention and admiration, but true love they are not. At the same token, Cecilia also loved the idea of this big celebrity star wisking her away from her dire domestic life. You see, there is "love" and there is "true love". True love is giving up everything that is important to you for that person, loving them despite their celebrity status, their flaws. The other side of love is the conditional love. Gil was "loving" Cecilia on the condition she would persuade Baxter to return, and Cecilia was "loving" Gil on the condition of him taking her to Hollywood. The only person who truly loved someone was Baxter loving Cecilia, hence he unconditionally gave up the real world and return to the celluloid screen for her. So the question is who did Cecilia really loved? We get to see her in the end, sad and alone, thinking that she was blinded by reality and the only thing that was truly real was the character Baxter.
Sometimes I wonder of Cecilia's state of mind. She strikes me as someone who is willing to go with any man just to get away from her husband. She was willing to go with Baxter but when the next best thing came along, she was willing to go with Gil. Cecilia is always waiting for something to happen in her life and when the best (Baxter) has happened to her she lost him to the "fake" person. What Woody is trying to convey is- Is love real? Is the love of Baxter, a movie character came to life, real or is the love of Gil, made of flesh and bones, real love? As we see, real true love was Baxter. And Cecilia was too gullible, naive and a bit greedy to realize that her actions resulted in the love she lost.

I think the question is ridiculously simplistic. Love is not a simple yes-or-no.

Yeah right!

i agree.
there is a specific moment at the end of the scene at the music store. he is helping her with her coat while she is talking about Tom, and his face drops.
the real person is here, and she is (at this point) talking about the fictional as the real (even if she calls him fictional), and making Gil appear unreal.
kind of a tragic flaw. and when she finally makes up her mind, its all gone

Actually, when I mentioned "written into his character," that's a quote from Tom himself. I forgot the exact context, but he was saying that he was an admirable person - almost the ideal man in fact - because his role was written that way. In some odd way he is aware that he is fictional.
I'm not sure Gil is particulary admirable, but he is not quite a coward either. My take on him is that he becomes aware that Cecilia's interest in him is more fan flattery than love. He sees that she is already obessed with Tom, his on-screen persona, on that must give him some doubts. If his ego wasn't so big he would have recognized this when he met her and not led her on.
There's a reason celebrities often date and marry other celebrities - not because of snobbery, but because these are the only people they can trust to see them as they really are.

great story, great characters, and so beautifully done.
someone here said that Tom loved Cecilia because it was written into his character. i loved that.
here's the way i see it:
i believe he also loved her because of the "life" given to him by Gil.
and it was probably that same part of Gil jimself that made him love her as well.
but there is a huge difference between the real and the symbol.
there could be no other ending to complete this story.
in real life, Gil and Cecilia could never be together. she had to choose reality, and she will probably go back to watching movies. for her, the movies represent escape. i like to believe that she leaves Monk, but i'm not completely sure of that. real people dont always change.
and Gil- i believe he really does love her, but being a real person he is not a "courageous poetic and romantic" soul. he is a coward, and he has a career to take care of. he will never forget her, but he'll also never fight to be with her.
and at the end of the movie, we really have to accept reality along with Cecilia.
and that is so perfect.

I think the existing ending makes sense.
When Gil and Cecilia meet, it's an interaction between a celebrity and a fan, not a natural meeting between two people. Cecilia showers him with flattery, and he initially responds to that. But she really doesn't know
him
per se; she only knows his movie roles and probably the publicity allowed by the film studio.
Gil may be intrigued by her at first but, since he is a professional actor, he figures out the difference between fantasy and reality faster than she does.
As the recently deceased Betty Hutton once said: "All four of my husbands fell in love with Betty Hutton; they didn't fall in love with me."

i don't believe you. i've never heard of this. do you have any references for this?

Where did you see this other version? I've never heard of it. You must be having a joke, right?